How to Add Oil: 1981 Mercedes-Benz 380SEL 3.8L V8 Sedan (4 Door)

Mercedes-Benz 380SEL Model Years - 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991

How to remove the oil cap, add the correct oil type, check oil capacity, and fix minor oil leaks

Author

Hans Angermeier is an ASE certified Maintenance and Light Repair Technician and has produced over 100,000 videos showing drivers how to fix things on their cars. He has broad expertise on basic repair procedures covering the majority of cars on the road. Over the past 10 years, Hans has been focused on building CarCareKiosk, which is visited by millions of drivers each month.

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Video Description

See how to add oil to your 1981 Mercedes-Benz 380SEL and where to add oil. This video shows the location of the oil filler cap and how to find the filler cap in a 1981 380SEL. Before adding oil to your 380SEL, make sure that your engine was cold and that your car was parked on a level surface when you checked the oil level otherwise you won't be able to tell if your 380SEL has a low oil level.

How much oil does my car take? For most Mercedes-Benzs, if your oil level is at the minimum mark on your dipstick, you should add about a quart of oil to get to a point where the car is safe to drive. If you drained all of the oil, check your owners manual for the 1981 Mercedes-Benz 380SEL oil capacity.

Why is my car low on oil? Your car is leaking oil or your car is burning oil. Symptoms of an oil leak include oil leak coming from the 380SEL’s oil drain plug, a leaky oil filter gasket, a leak at the rear main seal, a loose oil fill plug or any other location that causes oil to leak under the car. It is typically okay to drive a car with an oil leak as long as you add fluid regularly and do not let the fluid leak get too low. You can often fix an oil leak yourself for cheap by adding an oil leak stopper directly to the 380SEL oil fill hole. Otherwise, you need to identify where the oil leak is coming from and fix that part.

If your 1981 Mercedes-Benz has a low oil light on, that means you have low oil pressure, which indicates a mechanical problem and you should not drive your car and turn your engine off.

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